- 5 weeks ago
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00:00Now that we head towards training camp, you know, football, of course, is on the mind of many.
00:04It's taking over.
00:06I saw somebody say that the best thing about, you know, waking up after the All-Star game,
00:11Major League Baseball All-Star game, is like, okay, now we can turn our attention to football.
00:14And boy, are we.
00:15And Stroud, obviously, is one of the hot topics in the NFL.
00:17So there's a lot of people out there right now talking about C.J. Stroud,
00:21especially with that top 10 quarterback ranking on ESPN and this top 100 list that is continuing
00:27by the NFL, and we're waiting to see if and when C.J. Stroud pops up on that list.
00:33But I did find some of this audio.
00:34Seth, you found this audio.
00:36Yeah.
00:36And then I found it interesting after you passed it along.
00:39But Jeremy Fowler with some interesting audio and a word that I like that you pointed out earlier
00:44because we say the same thing in broadcasting, that it's the word you never want to hear.
00:49And I guess it might be the same for quarterbacks.
00:52Yeah, indifferent.
00:53Yeah, indifferent.
00:54And just to set this up, this is Jeremy Fowler who compiles these top 10 position rankings on ESPN,
01:01talks to 70 scouts, executives, coaches, et cetera, to try to come up with these rankings.
01:07And C.J. finished, at best, 18th in the voting.
01:12And really, he only had one top 10 vote, only one vote because guys vote for their top 10.
01:17And he said, Patrick, ask him about C.J. Stroud and what some of these poll respondents were saying.
01:26This is what Jeremy Fowler said.
01:27You know, I didn't get enough responses on C.J. Stroud to get a ton of feedback because he really
01:32just wasn't a factor in the voting.
01:34But I think with Stroud, it's...
01:36And maybe that's the point of it, that you didn't get responses.
01:40That says a lot.
01:40Yeah, kind of.
01:41I mean, honestly, I think he got one vote, I want to say.
01:44It just wasn't a factor.
01:46But the abilities there, you know, what happened last year, especially in the playoffs, it's certainly a concern.
01:51You know, some people wonder, like, okay, is that a byproduct of something that was going on behind the scenes
01:56all year
01:56or just wasn't comfortable in the offense?
01:58I know it was raining that day and New England played well, but some of the decisions were odd.
02:04But it's funny, though, he has a chance to be a fast riser because the tools and the skill set
02:08are there.
02:08And you talk about quarterbacks being able to throw over the middle of the field with accuracy.
02:13He can do some of those things where some of the quarterbacks ahead of him aren't as good.
02:17So I don't necessarily think, like, people are really down on him or he's not a starter or his job's
02:23on the line.
02:24I don't feel like it's that.
02:25It's just maybe more of a little indifference.
02:27I just didn't get a lot of responses on him.
02:30Yeah, that's just depressing to me.
02:34I think of the two main lists that are coming out right now, there's the NFL Top 100, which is
02:39really, like,
02:40if you think about the way the balloting works, for the NFL Top 100, players choose who the top 20
02:47players are.
02:47That's just they have a ballot and they fill out who they think the top 20 players are.
02:51So to, like, use that as a ranking for the actual, okay, who's 50th through 100th, it's mathematically really dicey
02:58for a lot.
02:59A lot of different reasons.
03:00Likewise, though, with the ESPN Top 10 in a position group, it makes a little bit more sense because it's
03:06a smaller pool.
03:07You're confining it to one position.
03:11But, like, one vote in the top 10 skews things a lot more.
03:15And then if you have two in the top 10, like, the rankings for 11 through 25 can be swayed
03:23a lot by just one opinion.
03:25It's really notable that CJ has fallen in each successive year since 2024 to the point now where I think
03:32people are looking at him as, like,
03:35he's definitively not a top 10 quarterback other than just one person who put him in that vote.
03:41And so, yeah, when you're having a conversation about who the top 10 are, right now CJ is somewhere outside
03:47of that in most people's minds.
03:49And it puts him into that group of players who didn't make the top 10 on ESPN.
03:53But it's, like, some of the more notable things, I, like, okay, CJ Stroud being 18th, 19th, or 20th, or
03:59wherever he ended up finishing in the voting.
04:01That's notable.
04:03But, like, Jalen Hurts having the – Jalen Hurts being so far outside.
04:08I think he finished 17th or something.
04:11Like, that's a guy that's been – that's a guy who's won a Super Bowl, been to a couple of
04:17Super Bowls, but isn't looked at – in a weird way, isn't looked at as the driving force on his
04:22team
04:23and is not regarded as a top 10 quarterback.
04:26Like, Eagles fans have a lot more – and I tend to agree with him not being a top 10
04:30or being debatable whether he's a top 10.
04:32But I also understand why Eagles fans would be irate about him not being in the top 10 despite everything
04:37he's accomplished.
04:38Yeah, for sure.
04:40There's one part in that clip from Jeremy Fowler where I did chuckle because he sounded so dejected when Dan
04:46Patrick said something like, I don't know,
04:49that's not very much or whatever about CJ Stroud, and he said, yeah, I know.
04:53Like, he – almost like Fowler was sad to admit that there wasn't a lot of thought about CJ Stroud
04:59in this whole thing.
05:00This one is – like, usually the top 100 is whatever.
05:06I just – I've never liked that.
05:07I just – I think it's just such a bogus poll.
05:10This one, the ESPN rankings, I think even if people disagree with it,
05:15this is the one where I felt from the fan base over the last few days just almost a deflation
05:22amongst themselves
05:23where we've been propping ourselves up, propping ourselves up, talking ourselves back into CJ Stroud,
05:28and like, look, you just need this, you just need that.
05:30And I still believe in a lot of that, but it almost felt like confirmation.
05:34I would have rather heard people say, like, nope, he's done.
05:39Like, I would have liked to hear executives or coaches say, no, he's done.
05:43He's never going to be anything.
05:44He's going to be trash.
05:45Because then I could be defiant against that.
05:47The fact that they're just indifferent and just aren't even really thinking about him,
05:51that's somehow even more – that's more deflating and scary because it's the –
05:56I think it's the genuine reality of the deal.
05:59Like, Fowler is trustworthy in my mind in terms of, like,
06:03there's a guy that's got a good relationship with a lot of NFL people,
06:06and they're giving him honest opinions and everything,
06:08and they're just flat out not talking about CJ Stroud.
06:10Yeah, yeah, indifferent is – that is a big buzzword.
06:13And I said, like, even in our industry here, that's a huge thing.
06:16You want to be, I guess, divisive for that.
06:21Classic from the Howard Stern movie where, you know,
06:23they figured out that the people that hated Howard Stern listened twice as much.
06:27So you either want them to hate you or love you,
06:30but you want them to have an opinion about you.
06:32If someone's indifferent, they're not even thinking about you.
06:34You're even worse off, I would say, than someone saying, oh, no, he's not very good
06:39or he's not good enough, if they're indifferent, they're not even thinking about you.
06:43It's like the famous line in the book, what, The Fountainhead,
06:47where there's an architect, Howard Wark,
06:50and the newspaper columnist is very critical of this architect over and over and over again,
06:55and they finally meet, and the columnist says, like, so, what do you think of me?
07:01And the architect says, I don't, and walked away.
07:04And it's kind of similar of, like, you know, you want to be thought of,
07:07and to hear that word indifferent, it's tough for a guy who, you know,
07:11just two years ago as a rookie was towards the tops of the league.
07:14Yeah, that's, I didn't know that.
07:18I don't know if that's where they lifted that.
07:21And there's a famous scene in Mad Men where Don Draper says,
07:24I don't think about you at all, which was a lie,
07:26because he totally thought about that character at all.
07:28Did he lift that from Ayn Rand?
07:29Was that a Fountainhead reference?
07:31I guess so.
07:32Yeah, it's the famous line from that book.
07:34I knew Don Draper was a libertarian.
07:37I always love that idea, too.
07:39Like, I think that is the best thing you could say to somebody,
07:42someone that's been critical or think that, you know, they're on your mind.
07:45Yeah, yeah.
07:46And you're like, oh, I don't think about you at all.
07:47I think that part of it, yeah, you'd much rather your quarterback be hated
07:53because he's won so much.
07:56I'd love to be in a position where people are screaming about whether or not
08:00CJ Stroud is overrated the way that people get in arguments about whether Tom Brady is overrated
08:06because it comes from a position of people hating him because he won so much.
08:10And they're just not in that situation right now, particularly, like, even after last year.
08:14It's really, really easy for people to just put all the blame for that playoff loss on CJ Stroud and
08:20CJ Stroud alone.
08:21You know, we've talked for months now about all the different nuances and everything,
08:25but the sum total is that, yeah, like, for whatever reason or explanation there is,
08:31the sum total of it all leads to your quarterback hasn't performed at the same level as everybody else.
08:37Whether he does – now, Jeremy Fowler elsewhere in this interview did point out that, look,
08:42like, these guys move up and down every year.
08:44You know, Jalen Hurts has been in the top ten.
08:46Now he's out of the top ten.
08:47And other guys that – you know, Jaden Daniels is still in the top ten,
08:52so didn't get punished for whatever last year was, or at least he's just outside the top ten.
08:58He's somewhere right around there in the periphery.
09:01But, like, if Jaden Daniels were to stay completely healthy this year
09:05and then not be as impressive as he was his rookie year again,
09:08then there's a really good chance he slides out of it going into next year.
09:12I'm going to circle back to Jeremy Fowler, but first I do want to get to this next piece of
09:16audio
09:16and get your thoughts on this, Seth, because Greg Cassell, who, you know,
09:19is considered one of the more elevated minds in the football space.
09:24He watches a lot of film.
09:25He breaks it down.
09:27He was on a podcast.
09:29Here we go again.
09:30I don't know what podcast.
09:31Don't ask me.
09:31But he was on some podcast.
09:32He was on Ross Tucker's podcast.
09:33Was that where it was?
09:34Yeah.
09:34I know he does a lot of appearances.
09:37Anyways, here's Greg Cassell where he made the case that the game is too fast for Stroud.
09:43Here's what Cassell said.
09:44I mean, C.J., I can only go by watching tape.
09:47I don't know what's in his head.
09:48But C.J. Stroud has become a quarterback that plays incredibly fast.
09:52His mental and physical processes become speeded up way too soon.
09:57He perceives pressure that's often not there.
10:00When he can't play in rhythm, you can almost see his body language in the pocket.
10:04Everything becomes faster.
10:06I thought Troy Aikman spoke about it really well during the telecast.
10:10The last two years have been difficult.
10:11They've got to figure out what it is.
10:14If he's the guy, he's going into his fourth year.
10:18But the last two years, for the most part, with few exceptions, he's not been a comfortable player.
10:25Everything's happening too fast for him.
10:28I think that, for one, I saw that same tweet where that clip was.
10:33This was from a while ago on the Ross Tucker podcast.
10:38Because we had actually played this a couple months ago or so.
10:41It might have been directly after the playoffs.
10:43But the guy that posted it, he did that dirty thing where he posts a clip of a video,
10:48but then puts some quotes in it.
10:50He puts some quotes in his post that aren't actually in the video.
10:53So this Scott Barrett guy, he put, quote,
10:57the game is moving too fast for him.
10:59They need to take protections off his plate.
11:01And that's not what he said.
11:03That's not what Greg Cassell said at all.
11:06It was really weird.
11:07It's just that dirty little social media engagement bait thing that people are doing.
11:11This was Greg Cassell also talked about this a few weeks ago in talking about the difficulties of handling a
11:24scheme change,
11:25going from Bobby Sloak's scheme to the New England style system.
11:30They could not run the ball.
11:31Now, it's always easy to say, well, Stroud's not been great because the run game's bad.
11:35And obviously there is a correlation.
11:36I'm not going to sit here and say there's no correlation.
11:39But they brought in David Montgomery, and they revamped their entire offensive line.
11:44They're going to have three or four new starters.
11:47Okay, they brought in Braden Smith to play right tackle.
11:49Wyatt Teller, who for a couple of years there in Cleveland was as good a left guard as there was
11:54in the league,
11:54particularly in the gap scheme run game as a puller.
11:57Keelon Rutledge, who played guard, the rookie out of Georgia Tech, he'll probably play center.
12:02So, they're going to have a brand new offensive line and ideally at least a serviceable run game.
12:10And David Montgomery is one of those backs.
12:12He's a, you know, it's so funny.
12:14People always talk about backs being special and all that.
12:17But you know what?
12:18You don't have to have a special back to have a consistent, sustaining run game.
12:22Okay, I mislabeled that.
12:24That's not the quote.
12:24There was another one where he talked about the difficulty of transitioning to a New England style system
12:29where you do have to, you are responsible for the coverages and everything.
12:32Sorry about that, Ben.
12:33That's my fault.
12:34Cassell's just throwing us out of whack today.
12:36He's just throwing us, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:38No, but that part of it.
12:41So, the fake quote that the guy who posted that, I think was trying to paint that, like, somehow CJ's
12:46like, you know,
12:47he can't handle this.
12:48He needs to take it.
12:49That's not what Cassell said at all, and I watch every Cassell interview I can find.
12:53I don't recall him ever saying anything like that.
12:55That's more the opinion of the person who posted it.
13:00The point I make and Cassell has made is that it's not so simple.
13:04You know, there was, like, Tom Brady and the level at which he operated.
13:08People love to throw clips of him from 2011 and later on where he is just this complete conductor of
13:16an orchestra
13:16at the line of scrimmage and act like that's what he was like back when they won their first couple
13:22of Super Bowls,
13:22and it wasn't.
13:23Like, that was a transition and a process, and it took a lot of time to get him to that
13:27point.
13:28And any quarterback's going to have some difficulties doing that.
13:32One thing that Josh McDaniels did last year in teaching Drake May that New England-style system
13:37was that he knew how to do it in palatable or, you know, bite-sized chunks,
13:42that you can bring it along and you can do certain things,
13:46but you can't add too much to the quarterback's plate.
13:49And he's had a lot of experience doing that with young quarterbacks.
13:52Nick Haley hasn't had as much experience doing that with young quarterbacks.
13:55He's been, you know, in the building in New England as they've worked with quarterbacks.
14:00But as an offensive coordinator, he hasn't been that guy.
14:03And then he went to the Rams, and he's, you know, working with Matt Stafford.
14:07What are you going to teach him?
14:09So I think that's a part of it.
14:11It's not just C.J. Stroud.
14:13It's Nick Haley working with C.J. Stroud, and those two as a duo learning a lot of hard lessons
14:21about how to teach and integrate that system onto an offense with a young quarterback.
14:27So that part of it, it should be better this year just because he's got time in the system.
14:33But it's not a guarantee that it's definitely going to be where it needs to be.
14:38By the way, we need a lot of times on all these videos
14:42because there's another one that went viral yesterday of C.J. Stroud
14:45talking about, like, the difference between women in Houston and California.
14:48But you can tell that one's old because he still has the long hair in that video.
14:53That was right after his rookie year.
14:54Or it might have been before his rookie year.
14:56It was definitely, like, either right before or right after his rookie year.
14:59It was on the Boardroom podcast.
15:01But it's been making the rounds again, like, as if people think it's a new clip.
15:04Even though his hair is long.
15:06Right.
15:06Right.
15:07So that's the giveaway.
15:08So when Greg Cassell goes on the Ross Tucker podcast every week,
15:11you don't know if this is a new clip or an old clip.
15:14And when people share it around, like, he just said this on his latest appearance.
15:18We need to put a date on every video on Twitter so you know,
15:22Oh, this is from January when he said this.
15:24I want to say, you know what?
15:25I want to say that that clip, the first clip we played from Cassell,
15:29I went back and, knowing that I've mislabeled some things this morning,
15:33take this with a grain of salt.
15:34But I want to say that that clip, the first clip we played was actually from October.
15:38Oh, my gosh.
15:38In the past season.
15:40So, like, I mean, he said similar things after the season,
15:42so it's not necessarily, that doesn't date the reference.
15:47But, yeah, that one with C.J. Stroud, man, you know what that was a reminder of?
15:52C.J.'s come a long way in just knowing when to shut up.
15:55He talked.
15:56I remember his rookie year, even before he had ended up, you know,
16:00ranking himself in the top five of quarterbacks or anything,
16:03like, even before his rookie season,
16:05and I remember talking with Sean about how, like,
16:08he's going to get himself in trouble at some point
16:11because it's awesome that he's willing to talk.
16:13But sometimes as a quarterback, you just need to cut it off
16:16and not say too much.
16:18And then, lo and behold, after that first season,
16:20he's talking smack.
16:21He's putting himself in the top five QB rankings and everything.
16:24There's certain things that, as a quarterback,
16:26you just don't have to answer or talk about.
16:28And I would include in that doing two minutes on why L.A. women
16:34are better than Houston women.
16:36And you know what the other part about that clip, though?
16:38I'll get retroactively upset about this.
16:40In that clip, C.J. was talking about why L.A. women
16:43are better than Houston women.
16:45And he brings up, like, just the difference in options or whatever.
16:49And he brings up Inland Empire and he brings up San Diego,
16:51where I'm like, okay, it's cool, it's all Southern California, I get it.
16:54But then he brings up Oakland.
16:56Like, all right, well, wait a second.
16:58You can't go all the way up to Oakland and include that in L.A. women
17:01and talking about the diversity of different types of women in L.A.
17:07if you're then comparing it to the city of Houston.
17:09I don't care how old the clip is.
17:11What the hell are you talking about?
17:12Yeah, that's right.
17:13I know.
17:14He went on that whole, like, even after the rookie season,
17:16he went on, like, a whole media tour and everything.
17:19And it's almost like the studious girl in high school that finally, you know,
17:22she actually comes back from one summer vacation,
17:24and now suddenly she's considered attractive.
17:27Yeah.
17:28And it's just like you just love all that attention and the spotlight.
17:31But it reminds me of Doug Peterson, after he won a Super Bowl at the Eagles,
17:35wrote a book along the lines of, like, how I won a Super Bowl.
17:38And he went on a book tour that whole offseason
17:40and was talking about how he beat Bill Belichick and how he was just great.
17:44And then, long story short, he went 10 games under .500 the rest of his career.
17:50It's like, you know, congrats on winning the Super Bowl,
17:52but let's get back to work instead of talking about how great you are all offseason.
17:56It's like when you see a 29-year-old write their memoirs.
18:00You know, give this a little time, buddy.
18:03Yeah.
18:03You haven't even been addicted to heroin yet.
18:05Right.
18:06Yeah, like, give me something meaty that I can read about.
18:09Yeah, come on.
18:10You don't know what it is.
18:12Going back to Jeremy Fowler, because I did find this interesting.
18:14We're starting.
18:15We are starting, despite all the C.J. Stroud consternation in the media,
18:21we are starting to get some national media members that are coming around
18:25pretty highly on the Texans, because I've been making the case all offseason
18:28that I feel like the Texans are still underrated,
18:30despite the quarterback concerns.
18:32I heard Aaron Schatz this morning say that the Texans are his pick to win the AFC,
18:36which we played previously.
18:38But he has them ranked as the best DVOA team in the AFC.
18:41But anyways, here was Jeremy Fowler that's saying,
18:43if the Texans can just figure this one thing out,
18:46they could win the Super Bowl this year.
18:48Here was Fowler.
18:49I think the offense, he's had changes.
18:51You go from O.C. Bobby Sloick to Nick Caley.
18:55Like, they need to be able to run the ball and simplify some things for him.
18:58And once they do, his arm talent and his ability can take over.
19:00But let's be honest, Dan.
19:02I mean, Houston, and I'm doing this top 10 series,
19:05they have the best defense in the league.
19:06They have talent on offense.
19:08They've rebuilt their offensive line.
19:09If they can run the ball, they probably have.
19:12I mean, I think they'll win the Super Bowl.
19:13Like, I think they have that kind of team.
19:15And if they do that, then that changes things for C.J. Stroud in a big way.
19:18Yeah.
19:19I don't, you know, they say that.
19:21And yet, again, there is Jalen Hurts ranked 17th or 18th on that list.
19:25That's true.
19:25Top 20 quarterbacks.
19:26That's a good point.
19:27I don't know.
19:28Like, all right.
19:29How much does it change?
19:30I think the most encouraging thing is, at one point, Fowler lays out just how there's so many
19:39things right now.
19:42If you think about the fact that, like, whether you think they're good enough in the old school
19:47sense of the word or whatever it is, like, or whether it's just, you know, teams need
19:53to be more complete and well-balanced and the Super Bowl, the quarterback position doesn't
19:57matter as much as it used to be, that you look through any of the guys who received votes
20:02in this ranking of quarterbacks and you can see, okay, yeah, like, you go outside of
20:06the top 10 and, you know, okay, let's see, Sam Darnold finished 11th in that ranking.
20:12Yeah, I think you could win a Super Bowl with him if memory serves correctly.
20:15You know, Jaden Daniels, Jordan Love, Brock Purdy, Baker Mayfield, like, I go through those
20:21guys and say, yeah, I can certainly see those guys in a certain situation winning a Super
20:27Bowl.
20:27You know, if the Packers' defense improves, you know, like, you do a few of these different
20:33and those guys are plenty good enough to win a Super Bowl.
20:35Jalen Hurts was 17th in this list and he's won a Super Bowl himself.
20:41Um, Bo Nix, Daniel Jones, CJ Stroud received the fewest number of points in this poll.
20:48Uh, and like Bo Nix, yeah, very arguably if Bo Nix was healthy, uh, for that playoff game
20:53that he could have been in the Super Bowl.
20:54Here's the weird thing that I feel conflicted on because as I've been saying, I think the
20:58Texans should be one of the favorites of the AFC.
21:01Even if Stroud plays like they just did in the regular season last year, even if it's
21:05just an average offense, uh, they should be able to win the AFC.
21:08But then with these lists coming out, which Jeremy Fowler is, you know, heavily involved
21:12in these lists and he's the one that just had that audio that he even referenced.
21:16Like if you look at these top 10 lists, but here's my problem.
21:18Here's where I'm going to all this.
21:20Is when you look at this, they have a linebacker number six, and yes, they have two cornerbacks
21:24in the top 11 and they have two defensive ends in the top six.
21:27That's all great.
21:28But like Dalton Schultz wasn't on there.
21:30David Montgomery wasn't on there.
21:31No offensive lineman was on there despite 44 offensive linemen getting votes.
21:36CJ Stroud is ranked 20th.
21:38Like we're not even talking about trying to be, or I should say having average players
21:43on offense.
21:44These are guys that aren't even ranked.
21:45Montgomery was ranked outside of the top 20.
21:48Stroud was ranked, you know, whatever, 20th.
21:50Like these are theoretically bottom third of the league at their position.
21:55And yet, I guess it's a credit to the defense that I still feel like, yeah, but you know,
21:59this team's still good enough to win the AFC.
22:01It's that good of a defense.
22:04I think that the part about it that's, the part about it that I, you know, rankle against
22:10a little bit when it comes to like, hey, you don't have to have a great offense or anything.
22:15Do people say, well, look at Sam Darnold.
22:17Like, all right, I mean, right.
22:19But Sam Darnold played a lot differently than CJ Stroud last year.
22:23But going into last season, Jackson Smith and Jigba and Cooper Cup were not thought of
22:30as all that electrifying of a number one and number two wide receiver on that football team.
22:36People didn't know what Jackson Smith and Jigba was going to look like when he went, when
22:39he had to play more outside.
22:40And it looked pretty damn good.
22:43That's where, you know, credit Clint Kubiak for getting the absolute most out of those
22:49guys.
22:49You know, Kenneth Walker was, oh, he's too injury prone.
22:52He's not consistent enough.
22:53He's not enough of a receiving threat.
22:55Like, there were a lot of things about that offense that you could look at in the preseason
22:58and say, like, yeah, I don't know what they expect to do offensively.
23:03And the sum total of the entire unit was that they played pretty damn well.
23:08So that part of it, I try to, you know, I try to remind myself of that.
23:13But also remember that, yeah, the majority of teams where you say, like, I wouldn't get
23:17that excited about these guys on offense.
23:19Yeah, they don't give you any reason to get excited about during the season.
23:22Don't look at the fantasy football rankings if you don't have to.
23:25When it comes to the offensive skill position players for the Texans, just don't look at
23:28the fantasy football rankings.
23:30I can't help it.
23:30Just show up and let the computers make your selections, okay, on draft day.
23:34I just read an article yesterday of fantasy football putting the running backs in tiers
23:37and they had Montgomery in tier seven.
23:39I didn't even know they would go that far.
23:41That's a really understandable one, though, partly just because of the two running back
23:46dynamic.
23:46Yeah, yeah, fair.
23:47That's what I'm telling myself on that one.
23:49Pro football focus just ranked Montgomery as the 26th best running back in the league.
23:53So, you know, that's bottom seven.
23:55So, the rankings have not been kind for the offense.
23:58I think, honestly, Montgomery doesn't have to be a top ten running back in the league.
24:03He just needs to be really good in short yardage situations.
24:06And he needs to be, you know, consistently getting positive yardage.
24:11And a lot of that just falls back to the offensive line.
24:13I mean, so many, there's so many, I've usually got a rule of like, okay, once you get to the
24:18third if you're really reaching, because it's, you know, it's that parlay thinking.
24:24It's how Bill O'Brien was a general manager.
24:26You know, like, well, if this deal works out, and if this guy exceeds expectations, and if
24:31we give this guy more money than we should, and then you get seven ifs down the line, and
24:36you're like, okay, this is magical thinking here.
24:38It's like, you can't rely on this many ifs.
24:41It's on the Texans' offense right now.
24:43Absolutely.
24:43But if I get it down to one if, it's the offensive line.
24:47And it's as simple as that.
24:49It's that if the offensive line is definitively improved, then everything else improves by
24:57extension.
24:58And without saying that, no, they become the best offense in football or anything, it's
25:02just, that's just simple logic that the offensive line made it a lot harder to operate for every
25:07other position on the field last year.
25:09If they are better, if they're genuinely better, then there aren't a whole lot of ifs after
25:14that.
25:14It'll be an improved offense.
25:16And speaking of which, I found this interesting from Nate Tice, and this is on the Athletic
25:22Football Show, I think they call it, something like that.
25:25It's Nate Tice's podcast, and they do a great job, and Nate Tice's...
25:28Oh, no, that's not Nate Tice anymore.
25:29That's Robert Mays.
25:31Nate Tice left, so he's done something else.
25:33I think Nate Tice's podcast is the 301 football...
25:38Maybe that's what it is.
25:38I'm just going to continue this schtick of just...
25:42Now, he might have been on Robert Mays' podcast as a guest now.
25:45They used to be co-hosts, and then Tice left, so he might have been on Robert Mays'
25:50The Athletic Football Show.
25:51Okay, here's Nate Tice on the Steve Wilco Show.
25:53He's talking about what makes an effective run game, and I think this is a good piece
25:59of audio.
26:00This is an interesting piece of audio when we try to compare it to the Texans.
26:02Here's what Nate Tice said.
26:03Some of these top offense, Packers were in 7th, Lions 8th, Dolphins 10th, but you can't
26:10take penalties.
26:10And I saw that a lot of referees clamped down on offenses at the line of scrimmage, especially
26:18recently, especially this last year.
26:21And this is cheap yards, or losing cheap yards, I guess is the best way to put it, or giving
26:25cheap yards to the defense.
26:26And so I think it sounds stupid, but there's a lot to be said, that some of the best running
26:31teams are the least penalized teams, because they're the smartest teams, and they know what
26:36they're getting.
26:36So penalties happen when players' footwork...
26:40When I think of penalties, I just think of holdings and false starts.
26:42Maybe it's my dad.
26:44I don't think of OPI, or anything like that, but it's these ones that are controllable, or
26:50at least manageable.
26:51And I really do see that the best teams are the ones not shooting themselves in the foot
26:54over and over and over.
26:55This is where I think the Bears, you could see the first four, five, six weeks, and the
27:00Jaguars, I'd use them as another example, work through their kinks, and were able to
27:05get into this heavily, you know, super, you know, like, hyper-specific game plans with
27:11a lot of motion, a lot of shifting, a lot of formation change, or like the Jaguars and
27:15the Rams, super-packaged plays with long, wordy play calls, they were able to get better
27:20in the second half of the year, and then not put themselves in such bad situations.
27:23So even teams that got better, I think that you can look at just their pre-snap penalties
27:27and just see that get better, or just maybe their offensive penalties, I should say.
27:30But I really do think this is important, and I know this is old school, but it's something
27:35that's really stood out to me.
27:36It's like, it's frustrating to see a lot of teams just not know what they're getting
27:40with defenses and hold, or get illegal shift penalties and just suck because the right
27:45receivers don't know the second play call, which was the Jaguars in the first two months
27:48of the season.
27:49So it's very cool to see some of the teams get better and then they become tangible,
27:52and I think pre-snap and manageable penalties is one of those instances.
27:59That was on the Athletic.
28:01I had about 30 seconds of conversation that we didn't need to have.
28:07So I think the biggest thing about that is that I remember Dom Capers, that was one of
28:12the big things he always used to say is more games are lost than won in the NFL.
28:15And people would be dismayed sometimes to go into a meeting room and see how many
28:20mental errors actually are, like how many times mental errors are the reason your team
28:24lost the game.
28:25Look, we saw it last year with C.J.
28:27Gardner-Johnson and some of his coverage gaffes, ultimately.
28:30You find out through some very quick, very rapidly timed leaks in the media after C.J.
28:39Gardner-Johnson was released that some C.J.
28:42Gardner-Johnson mental errors or technique errors.
28:45A response to coverage errors were the reason the Texans, or at least a huge reason the
28:50Texans lost those first three games.
28:52On offense, I think that goes back to a lot of what they're trying to do offensively.
29:00It's whenever you add complexity, what ends up happening is guys make mental errors.
29:06You do have penalties.
29:07Everything that Nate Tice said right there about the Jaguars and those other teams, I think
29:11I agree with.
29:12It's that it's easier said than done and it looks great on the whiteboard, but there are
29:16a lot of moving parts to be able to operate that way and how quickly you can get it all
29:22working together makes a big, big difference.
29:25And like last year, things were just gunky.
29:28The best example of it was the Titans game when Jeffrey Simmons had that sack of C.J.
29:33Stroud.
29:34Remember, it was the fastest sack all year in the NFL because nobody blocked him.
29:39It looked like they were running four or three different plays being run by different players
29:44on the offense.
29:45You had four offensive linemen blocking the other defensive tackle that wasn't Jeffrey
29:49Simmons.
29:50And that's the kind of stuff you get when you're just not operating pre-snap that well.
29:56And they got better at it as the season went along.
29:58But, you know, obviously there was a lot about the offense that still wasn't ready.
30:02The hope is that, yeah, now that they've got all those kinks out, they can look more like
30:07a team that's not shooting themselves in the foot all the time.
30:10So that's an interesting perspective.
30:11And honestly, not what I had thought of because obviously, you know better than me, you played
30:15in the NFL, you were in these locker rooms.
30:17Maybe it's unfair of me, but I always hold, if a team is often penalized, I always hold that
30:23against the head coach, and it's been one of my biggest complaints under D'Amico where
30:29I just looked this up.
30:29The Texans were second in penalties his first year.
30:32They've been getting better, fifth in year number two, 11th this past year in penalties.
30:36So still something that needs to be improved for this team.
30:38But I'll be honest, I never did consider the fact of at least when it comes to those pre-snap
30:43penalties on offense that maybe it's just more so about the new offense.
30:46It's tough because whenever you slice into it, I used to do this as a player because Tom
30:50Coffin was huge on the penalties and everything that Nate Tice just said.
30:53Like Tom Coffin would be aggressively nodding his head in agreement.
30:58And yet at the same time, he would always put up these charts where he'd show the least
31:02penalized teams, and you'd be like, without fail, there were at least a few of them that
31:08were bad teams, and then there were a few of the most penalized teams that were really
31:12good teams.
31:12Like the correlation isn't as tight or as simple, but I think when you start breaking it
31:17down to like what Nate Tice was saying with the pre-snap penalties, and probably start
31:22to find some more consistent trends.
31:24I thought the thing that he's mentioned in there about the pre-snap motion and the audibleizing
31:30and all of that, I think the big takeaway from that, and I'm glad he said it, was that we
31:38all want a boatload of pre-snap motion. We
31:40all want these modernized NFL offenses and everything. I
31:43think sometimes people forget that it's not as simple as just saying, hey, this is what
31:47we're going to draw up, and we're going to have three different motions before the play,
31:51and then we're going to check to a different, we're going to check to the third play call
31:54we had in the huddle.
31:55Like every time you add another wrinkle of complexity to it, there's also a much greater
32:00chance for a mental error or a penalty.
32:02And that's where, it does come down to the coaching, Luke, but it's not as simple as
32:09just like, oh, you need to be more disciplined about this, or you need to yell about it more.
32:12It's really about how well are you teaching it, and how well are you practicing it, so
32:18when you get into a game, guys are relying on their technique, and they're not overly
32:23thinking or wondering what they're supposed to be doing.
32:25That all starts with the coordinators and how they're actually operating in practice.
32:29The thing that still bothers me to this day was that Tommy Togiai illegal motion down on
32:37the goal line at the end of the year.
32:39Do you remember when Tommy Togiai was the fullback?
32:42Yes.
32:42And after the game, C.J. Stroud said, you know, we hadn't practiced at full speed, and
32:48you know, it was like, we thought we, it's something along those lines.
32:51I'm like, well, all right, like, are we really doing this?
32:53We're really just, you're just throwing a, you're just throwing a defensive lineman
32:57back there at fullback and hoping for the best?
32:59I don't, I don't, I don't understand.
33:01And I just, that's, that's, that kind of freaked me out, because it makes me wonder,
33:06like, all right, what the hell is Nick Togiai doing as coordinator that you guys are,
33:09you guys are trying to add these wrinkles and barely practicing a play that ends up getting
33:14penalized during the game.
33:16Right.
33:16I'm with you.
33:17I have a vague memory of a team.
33:18I don't know who it was, Cowboys, Bears, Lions, somebody, I think it was a national game,
33:22because I remember texting about it with friends recently, where they put like the fullback
33:26in to hand them the football at the goal line, and he fumbled.
33:29And I think afterwards, after the game, he said like, yeah, we never practiced that.
33:31Like, we just, not the fullback, I should say a different position put in as the fullback
33:35to try to have him run it in.
33:37And yeah, anyways.
33:38The problem is, there are a bunch of stories also from guys like Tom Brady, where they'll
33:42say, you know what, we ran that in practice three times, and three times, and it never
33:46worked.
33:47But then we got in the game, and it worked perfectly.
33:49And what people forget about those types of stories is that it's Tom freaking Brady.
33:54Okay?
33:55Like, that's the, like, okay, there's a certain, there's a certain level of expectations you
34:00have with some quarterbacks, especially when they're veterans, than when you're a team
34:04that's just trying to figure things out.
34:06So, going back to just, like, the coach being responsible for penalties, that's always the
34:11hardest balance, is how do you figure out how much complexity to add?
34:16Like, how much can my team handle right now?
34:19Because if you go out there, and all you want is perfect execution, and you say, we're
34:23only going to run two plays, because we need to have perfect execution.
34:26Okay, cool.
34:26You'll execute them well, but you're going to get your ass kicked because you're so predictable.
34:30But then, so you're like, all right, we got to add a little bit more complexity, but
34:33we got to be sure we can operate well.
34:35So, it's always, like, I don't envy coaches for having to try to find that balance, because
34:40there's never a perfect balance.
34:42But it's always like, all right, we got to execute well, but we also have to be diverse.
34:48Just how much can we handle right now?
34:50And I don't, like, honestly, last year, the Texans couldn't handle a whole bunch.
34:52Well, that was a good old football conversation, getting to the depths of it about C.J.
34:58Stroud and his offense.
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